בס"ד
This is a blog for Jews who feel a sense of deep identification with HaYachad (Dead Sea Sect). This group is for Jews who feel nostalgia and longing for a Judaism that was, and a profound yearning for it to be again.
Our way leads to the Self-realization and, on an even more deeply satisfying level, the Mutual-Realization of Mashi'ach. That is what differentiates us from HaPrushim.
NO MATERIAL HERE IS TO BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION.
DoreenDotan@gmail.com

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

B”H

THE GALUT AS IGNORANCE OF HOW TO READ TORAH - PART TWO OF A TWO-PART ESSAY

In part 1 of this two-part essay I wrote: ” … the desirable and correct creation and description of time is the continual unfolding of the hidden depths of Torah and the adaptation and application of the mitzvoth to the realities that are created as a result of proper kavvanot and learning.” In this second part of the essay we will, with God’s help, now see that the correct punctuation of time is the correct punctuation and pronunciation of the Torah as we learn it in order to find formerly unrevealed depths and to develop the הלכה.

The thesis presented in this paper will be based on the simple meaning of the two פסוקים above and חלופים of a few basic gematriot that demonstrate the points raised in this paper quite simply, clearly and straightforwardly. The encompassing importance of חילוף cannot be overestimated, as we will, בע"ה, see.

A caveat: we always use the גמטריות to elevate what our minds understand to be the ‘meanings’ of the words. The widespread misuse, or more correct to say abuse, of the גמטריות to lend false validity to our delusions of evil or prove that our private prejudices are true is rife throughout the “Kabbalah”.

As is known, when words share a common value they are various aspects of one and the same mega-concept. By showing a number of חילופים for a value we can see its many aspects and layers of meaning emerging. All of those meanings are always true and mutually contained one within the others and all within any one.

Various inflections of the word that we are familiar with in the form הגוי can be found in the scrolls [see The Dead Sea Scroll Concordance, Volume One, the Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran, Part One, by Martin G. Abegg, Jr. with James E. Bowley & Edward M. Cook & in Consultation with Emanuel Tov, Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands for the exhaustive list of cites]. There are apparently anomalous spellings of words throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those “anomalies” are filled with meaning as will be explicated, with HaShem’s help, in a book I am currently writing. The spellings the gematriot of which appear below appear in this form in the scrolls.

Please note that in cite 4Q417 1i17 we find the word הגוי, which, depending on the punctuation and context, can mean ‘the People’ or ‘meditation’. The significance of this will be discussed in brief anon.

Let us first examine the simplest inflection of the word הגוי that appears in the scrolls. It is the word spelled thus:

הגי = 18 = חי

It becomes immediately evident from this one חילוף alone that as we meditate upon and learn Torah, so we live.

The Dead Sea scrolls come to teach us that ספר התורה is the Book of Life and as we meditate in it and learn it so will our lives be. It behooves us then to be very, very careful that we learn correctly.

Let us come to understand who and what חוה is. She is referred to in Torah as אם כל-חי and we are taught that that is why Adam gave her the name חוה (Bereisheet 3:21).

From the חלוף of the word הגי above we can see that אם כל-חי can be read as אם כל הגי.

Let’s look deeper into this matter:

חוה = 19 = הוגה = ההגו = גוי = עולם חדש = 1018** = התגים = 19

**According to the tradition of gematria bequeathed to us from time immemorial the letter א' is equal to both one, as it is the first letter of the Hebrew aleph-beit and also to 1000, thus its name. The fact that the letter א' is equal to 1000, as well as to one, is apparent from the fact that if we assign values to all of the letters from א' to ץ' we can see that ץ' is equal to 900. Thus, returning for another “go” around the aleph-beit the letter א' is equal to 1000 as well as one as it is the letter that comes after ץ. Continuing this understanding, the letter ב' is equal to 2, 2000 and 1001; the letter ג' is equal to 3, 3000, 1002 and 2001 and so on.

חוה is אם כל-חי, she is אם כל חגי. The gematria of her name is equal to הוגה and to ההגו and to גוי and to עולם חדש and to התגים as we have seen above. From this we learn that our experience of all that lives, including the Gentile nations (הגוים), is entirely dependent upon our own learning of what the Dead Sea Sect called ספר ההגי and ספר ההגו. From the חילוף above of the name חוה we understand that ספר ההגו is ספר חוה.

We must ask what הספר is. The gematria of the word ספר is 340 or ש"מ. Thus, the word הספר would become 345 or שמ"ה, an anagram of which is the name משה. We see now that משה is the Book. How can it be said that Moshe did not know the Law? Moshe is the Book of the Law!

Translation: The Talmud in Tractate Menachot (29b) quotes Reb. Yehuda, who said in the name of Rab: When Moshe ascended to heaven to receive the Torah he found Hashem engaged in affixing tagin (three small upward strokes in the form of a crown) to the letters. Moshe then asked, "Master of the Universe, Who is forcing Your hand [that You have to add crowns to the letters ]?" Hashem replied: "There will be a man, after many generations, whose name is Akiva ben Yosef and he will expound a multitude of laws upon each stroke of these coronets." Moshe asked to be permitted to see that man, and Hashem instructed him to turn around. Moshe sat down behind eight rows [of Rabbi Akiva's disciples in the Beth Hamidrash - some say it was 10 rows - and listened to their discussions]. Moshe found that he could not follow their arguments. He felt as if his strength had been sapped, but when they came to a certain topic, the students asked Rabbi Akiva (in reference to a law that was being discussed): "From where do we know this?" Rabbi Akiva responded, "Halacha L'Moshe M'Sinai" - this is an oral law handed down to Moshe at Sinai. At that moment Moshe was comforted (since his teaching was quoted, although he had not yet received the Torah - see Rashi). Thereupon Moshe said to Hashem: "You have such a man and yet You give the Torah [to Israel] by me?" Hashem replied: “Hush, this is My decree (literally, "So it has come to My mind")." [This translation according to: http://www.torahtots.com/torah/tagin.htm].
We can now understand, and sympathize with, the outrage and dismay that HaYachad expressed at the teachings of the Prushim [See: The Tzaddokite Fragments (The Damascus Document) 5:11-13]. Having the Holy Tongue reveal to us that משה and הספר are two aspects of one and the very same mega-existence, we begin to appreciate the extent to which those who claim that Moshe was a person who had to learn the depths of Torah from the Rabbis is based on utter ignorance of the truth of Torah, who and what Moshe is, and that it is hubris that only the abysmally ignorant are capable of. The painful truth that we have been sold a bill of goods by Rabbis who did not understand Torah, and banked on the fact that the masses knew even less than they, begins to sink in. We might like to deny this painful truth. Realizing that we have been betrayed by those we trusted to be our spiritual and moral mentors and guides is a terribly rude awakening. Admitting this truth to ourselves may take much time; but we will never extricate ourselves from the galut if we do not.
There are conflicting opinions in the Pharisaic/Rabbinical literature concerning the weight one should place on learning Torah using the gematriot. Some Rabbis did not consider the gematriot the “tachlis” of learning Torah, for instance this famous quote:
רבי אליעזר בן חסמא אומר קנין ופתחי נדה הן הן גופי הלכות [תקופות וגימטריאות פרפראות לחכמה]: (מסכתות קטנות מסכת אבות דרבי נתן נוסחא א פרק כז ד"ה רבי אליעזר)

other sources do attribute great importance to the learning of gematriot. For instance, this lesser known, quote:

Although in actuality there are more quotes in the Pharisaic/Rabbinic sources that tout the learning of gematriot, the opinion of Eliezer ben Chisma on the matter, as quoted above, is by far the best known and the prevailing opinion.

We see from the Pharisaic/Rabbinic sources which mention the gematriot that the learning of gematriot was known by them to be associated with the learning of dikduk, t’kufot and mazalot. A number of Rabbis are said to be experts in these matters (ben Zakkai, Akiva and ben Chisma for instance), or are soi-dissant cognocenti (the Ramba”n, ba’al Sefer HaChinukh, Rabbeinu Yona and Moshe de Leon are among these), but they did not see fit to teach these matters generally and left generation after generation of disciples unable to plumb the depths of Torah.
We have considered some of the gematriot of some of the inflections of the word הגי above. What is הגוי, after all, if not the pronunciation of Torah? And what is pronunciation of Torah if not the use of the punctuations as determined by the Divine Laws of Hebrew grammar that are also the laws that rule the heavenly bodies and thus describe time. As we saw in part 1 of this two-part essay the common gematria of the words זמן, מקראות and להבין is 747. We see from the Pharisaic/Rabbinic sources that gematriot were known to them to be associated with dikduk, t’kufot and mazalot. Whether they really knew these secrets or dabbled in them, having merely heard about these matters from true Masters is unknown. It would appear from their interpretation of Torah that they were not Masters of this knowledge on the level that those who wrote the ‘Dead Sea scrolls were’.
The central lesson we learn from the חילופים of the word הגי, and its inflections, is this: It is the understanding of the Text, ההגוי, that determines everything that we experience in life הגי חי = 18 and in time זמן = מקראות = להבין = 747.
Clearly now that we have returned to Eretz Yisrael we must divest ourselves of the Pharisaic teachings, the physical expression of which is the galut, as well as the improvisations that the Rabbis concocted, which perpetuate and compound the galut, and make an end to it impossible because they continue to generate redoubled and compounded convolutions in space/time, which are the physical expression of their dishonest emotions and convoluted thinking, which they take with them when they gaze into the Torah. We must return to the true Service, which is none other than the elevation and purification of that which we perceive using חילופים. Returning to a state of consciousness that is fully steeped in the Holy Language will be a process and will, of course, take time. Yet the work must begin and in so doing we will halt the continuing creation of distorted and convoluted time/space.
We learn from the scrolls that the Pharisees, as well as the Sadducees who had gone astray, had distorted the Temple practices and did not, or could not, cleanse the Temple of the unthinkable defilement of the Chashmona’im. We cannot ignore the fact that these compromises, changes and distortions in the Temple service eventually brought about the downfall of the Temple and Yerushalayim Shel Mata. They also generated the galut.
During the time that the Second Temple all of creation was bent and broken by the desecration of the Temple Service and the putting of the Avodah of HaCohen Rosh in the hands of those not only not from the line of Tzaddok, HaCohen HaGadol in the time of David HaMelekh, but wholly perverse and whose hands were soaked with blood. We are still living in the effects of that cosmic disaster and it will also generate the dissolution of the Jewish enterprise in Eretz Yisra’el if we do not return to the true way. We are already seeing a society so warped by corruption in the State of Israel that the state itself is becoming untenable, r”l. Our only hope for survival here in Israel is to return to the Judaism that is contained in the ‘Dead Sea scrolls’. It is not for naught that HaShem revealed them to us concurrent with the declaration of the state.
We encounter the very same concepts, considerations and lessons that we find in the halakhic discussions and mystical trends of Pharisaic/Rabbinic Judaism in the writings of היחד. Yet היחד present them to us with a depth, intimate understanding, poignancy, immediacy and attainability that we do not find in the writings of the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition. It is the teachings of היחד that can return us to the true Service. The Rabbis are nary equipped to do this, as they are the inheritors of the Pharisaic tradition that contained many interpretations inimical to the spirit of Torah. In the Diaspora the Rabbis introduced more distortions into interpretation that were yet further afield and brought us further away from the Source Of Truth. This was, no doubt, based on their mistaken perception of the need for adaptation of ההלכה to changing circumstances in the galut as well as realpolitik and power plays among the Rabbis. This unfortunate state of affairs has left us with the bloated and untenable religion we encounter in our own times that leaves our Soul so very, very thirsty. These distortions, in turn, are generating the bloated and untenable world we collectively create and are trapped in.

Because we are not in a state of consciousness in which we perform the חלופים of the גמטריות naturally, as a matter of course, when reading Hebrew (and that is, indeed, the most abysmal גלות) we do not understand many concepts in תורה properly. As a result, we are reduced to hallucinating evil and plurality wherein none exist in reality. Moreover, because we are not aware of the fact that it is we ourselves creating these phantasmagorias and certainly we are not aware how creation occurs, we live in dread fear of the creations of our renegade minds, with the accompanying imprecation and execration of these phantoms and phantasmagorias. We blame “the goi’im” for our “tzuris”, when in fact it is we ourselves creating them. Thus, we bring the transgression of the מצוה אל תעשה not to curse upon ourselves. Horrible hells are created by the mind undisciplined, untrained in the חלופים of the גמטריא. That is our punishment for having abrogated the Kingdom of Heaven. Understand this. Understanding this is the key to our salvation and emancipation. Only when we realize that we are creating our own historic collective tragedy and personal misery, without knowing how and not being able to control or stop it, can we take pity on ourselves, and others, and pray to HaShem with a broken heart to show us the way out. Only then do we realize how hopelessly lost, confused and helpless we are. We were not intended to be lost in a nightmare of our own making. Reality does not have to be this way. We were intended to create Gan Eden by learning and doing (i.e., being) the Torah properly.

I cannot demonstrate just how the correct reading of Torah is done in a public forum such as this. There are many Jewish scoffers, Jews who misuse the gematriot in their ignorance and enthusiasm to push this or that agenda and, of course, non-Jewish would-be infiltrators who want to learn about HaYachad and arrogate their wisdom, to enter Kodesh HaKadoshim and defile the kelim in it for their own purposes. It is enough that you have been told that this knowledge must be retrieved from the genizah of the Jewish collective memory. It is for you to ask HaShem the rest.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be for a
blessing.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat

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Response From A Usually Very "Anti" Interlocutor:

Doreen makes some interesting points, not necessarily all wrong either.

An interesting work on the creation of woman, the original androgyny of man, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the dimunition of the Moon and womanhood's staure , the Exile of the Shekinah & the Jewish People, and the ultimate restoration to pre-Edenic times is to be found in "Kabbalistic Writings on the Nature of Masculine & Feminine" by Sarah Schneider 2001.

Sarah's site is
www.amyisrael.co.il/smallvoice/founder.html

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My Response

21:54 28 Apr 2004
B”H

Thank you for recommending the site above.

I went to the site you gave the URL to and found the face of a woman I’m sure is very nice and well-meaning smiling back at me.

However, I should like to point out the differences between what she’s (apparently) “on about” and what I am. I think it only right that I send her this critique as well. I’ll send a copy to Rabbi Ginsburgh as well, be’ezrat HaShem.

At the outset I should say that I read on the site that she studied under Yitzchak Ginsburgh. I bought one of his books, The Hebrew Letters, some years ago. Even then I was left unimpressed and found the book simplistic. Evidently, what Mrs. Schneider learned the art and craft of marketing books from her mentor, who knows but a smattering of Torah, something that Rabbi Ginsburgh does excel in. I have chastised Rabbi Ginsburgh before for his “ufaratzta” (and marketing) approach to teaching about האותיות. That was after I found a Xian on the net using what she found on his site and interpreting it in the perverted way that only Xians know how to do. He remained obdurate and unrepentant. Evidently his reputation and income are more important to him than that the Torah should be in Jewish hands. Forgive me, then, if I do not trust one of his disciples entirely.

In contradistinction to Mrs. Schneider and Rabbi Ginsburgh I do not use the Torah I learn as a spade to dig with. I have never received remuneration for my research and never asked for it. I do not receive money to learn and disseminate Torah. I have also been quite stern with those who tried to encourage me to make myself generally known. In actually, I expend money to share that which HaShem has granted me – lots of it – and as a result I am reduced financially to living in a slum. I don’t think that’s any great moral shakes. It is the least a Jew can do for the זכות of serving HaShem. If we were living in communal societies, such as the Isi’im did, a scholar of Torah would not have to be poor. S/he would live at the same economic level as everyone else, no better no worse, and respect would be accorded on the basis of how much Torah one had learned and internalized. However, in the Diaspora there is no choice but to be poor if one intends to remain true to Torah, because the minute that one earns an income for it s/he must compromise her or his morality. As I have written in a number of essays, diverging from Torah morality even a hairsbreadth results in a vast divergence as the resulting “time” and “space” stretch out before us and the קץ is pushed indefinitely away.

Thus, I am immediately wary of Mrs. Schneider, lovely and ingenuous though she may look.

I clicked on the link Eating As Tikkun that is on her home page. This is the URL to that page: http://www.amyisrael.co.il/smallvoice/eatingastikkun.html I should like to request the reader to turn her or his attention to that site now in order to understand the rest of what I intend to write here, be’ezrat HaShem.

I was dismayed at seeing yet another misuse of the Kabbalah on the site, although I should not have been surprised. It is an avera, as it is a sneaky manipulation of people’s emotions, insecurities and confusion to hold out the promise of getting over eating disorders by learning the psuedo-Kabbalah that is so prevalent today. Chaba”d is the perhaps the worst offender of holding out the promise of solving all of one’s problems by learning their teachings, although many groups do this today. I have written about the deleterious effects of doing this. Here in Tzfat, the pseudo-Kabbalah capital of the world we see on an everyday basis that the city is cursed.

While it is most certainly true that foods are physical representations of deep spiritual truths, the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition has only scratched the surface of what the moral/spiritual substrate of the physical expression that is food is.

It is also certainly true that the addiction to food, as all addictions, is the Soul desperately trying to find the Truth that was lost. We understand innately that the sensations of all addictive substances, including food, are in essence Godliness and we try again and again, futilely, to get to that level. It is our hunger for the kernel of Torah that compels us to overeat. It is the desire for the spirit of Torah that compels some to drink excessively (thus alcohol is called spirits), it is the desire for blissful union with HaShem that makes some sex addicts, and so on with every addiction. All this is a result of the terrible galut that we are in.

Mrs. Schneider, as all Jews blindly loyal to the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition, has some inkling of the depth of what eating is, but not enough to understand. Actually, she has just enough knowledge to sell lessons to those who know even less than she does.

Please note that the word תאכל is written in the pasuk with a חלם חסר and not with a חולם. However, the very next letter after the word תאכל is a ו'. The word תאכל taken together with the ו' directly after it produces the word תאכלו. An anagram of the word תאכלו is כל אות. HaShem is given us a directive to ingest, as it were, every letter of the Torah. We are not talking about trees and fruits; we are talking about the basic building blocks of the Torah, which are also the basic building blocks of consciousness, and thus the creation as it appears to us. The physical trees and fruits that arise in the created world are expressions of how we learn Torah. It is because we do not know how we create the worlds that we do or even that we do, although we do, that we live in a world in which there are fruit-bearing trees and not fruit trees. We live in a world of cause and effect in which there is the artifact of time that our minds create. Thus there is a time delay. If we were not in the galut there would be no time continuum as we are now experiencing it. Creation would occur “simultaneously” concurrent and in accordance with our kavvanot in learning Torah. We would produce fruit trees, not fruit bearing trees. In fact, all creation would arise spontaneously and instantly without delay at all. That is what reality is like when we are not in galut. We can only create this completely satisfying food if we learn כל אות and טעם of Torah.

Note that every letter is the word תאכלו and, necessarily, in its anagram כל אות is an אות שמוש. The words מות and תמות as similarly comprised entirely of אותיות שמוש.
Depending upon the moral/spiritual level of the reader one will see death, another will see the secrets of how to read and permute the letters of the Torah. As Rabbi Kook wrote: “The Book is The Book, but it is the heart that does the interpretation.”

Another example of a story from Torah that is actually a lesson in how to read Torah is the (ostensible) story of the binding of Yitzchak. Without digressing, nor revealing more than those who might abuse the information should know, let it just be said that the word מאכלת is also comprised entirely of אותיות שמוש. Anyone who sees עקדת יצחק as a story about אברהם almost shechting יצחק instead of lessons in the secrets of אותיות השמוש and cannot see the fact that the word צדק is contained within the words עקדת יצחק has a serious spiritual/moral problem. Did you every notice that the letter ח' in the name יצחק is equal to ד+ד? That being the case we can clearly see that using the letter ק' in the radical עקד and the letter ק' in the name יצחק we have the root דקדק contained in the phrase עקדת יצחק. The story is actually lessons in דקדוק, which are not only the laws of Hebrew grammar, but also the very Laws of אמת וצדק that the universes should be conducted according to. Yet people see some horror story in עקדת יצחק, even as they see horror stories in their own lives, in the lives of others and in Jewish history. The Torah is called aspaklaria because it reflects who you are back at you. Understand this.

So, we see clearly that we don’t all have eating disorders, as Mrs. Schneider contends. We all have Holy Language reading disabilities, which is the result of having been given "tincture of diluted Torah" to drink by the Rabbis for so many generations.